Future
Navigating toward the best of all possible futures. Follow along as Singularity Hub discusses the future and latest trends in futurology.
Video Gamers May Soon Be Paid More Than Top Pro Athletes
Your interest in sports may have started out as a hobby when you were just a kid. You were better at it than others, and some even said you were gifted. Maybe you had...
How Will Artificial Intelligence Affect the Risk of Nuclear War?
As technology has progressed, humans have become ever more powerful. With this power comes great opportunity and great risk. Nowhere is this clearer than in the potential of artificial intelligence. But a new report...
Is It Moral to Seek Immortality? A Discussion at the Vatican
Earlier this month, I participated in a discussion/debate at the Vatican on the topic of “The Morality of Immortality.”
The discussion was moderated by CNN medical anchor Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and included Rabbi Dr. Edward...
5 Organizations Using Cool Tech Solutions and Research to Clean Up the Oceans
The Earth is an ocean world. From space, this fact is obvious, whether the planet appears as a bluish dust mote at the edge of the solar system, a bright sapphire star from our...
Holograms Can Now Program Brain Activity—Are Fake Experiences Next?
Optogenetics, neuroscience’s hottest mind-control tool, just got a major update.
Projecting 3D-light holograms—yes, holograms!—directly onto a mouse’s cortex, engineers at UC Berkeley instantaneously gained control of dozens of neurons at once.
That’s not the impressive part....
Will Europe’s Looming Tech Rules Prove to Be a Template for the World?
There was a time when people bought most of the software on their computer, but this is, of course, now ancient history. Some software you still buy, but much of today’s most-used software is...
Stuff 3.0: The Era of Programmable Matter
It’s the end of a long day in your apartment in the early 2040s. You decide your work is done for the day, stand up from your desk, and yawn. “Time for a film!”...
Tech Optimists See a Golden Future—Let’s Talk About How We’ll Get There
Technology evangelists dream about a future where we’re all liberated from the more mundane aspects of our jobs by artificial intelligence. Other futurists go further, imagining AI will enable us to become superhuman, enhancing...
Robot Cities: Three Urban Prototypes for Future Living
Before I started working on real-world robots, I wrote about their fictional and historical ancestors. This isn’t so far removed from what I do now. In factories, labs, and of course science fiction, imaginary...
How Will Merging Minds and Machines Change Our Conscious Experience?
One of the most exciting and frightening outcomes of technological advancement is the potential to merge our minds with machines. If achieved, this would profoundly boost our cognitive capabilities. More importantly, however, it could...
The Wild New Materials of the Future Will Be Discovered With AI
How materials for computer chips, solar panels, and batteries are developed looks to be in the early stages of a radical change. The same goes for research related to areas like superconductors and thermoelectrics.
The...
Republish Our Content—Singularity Hub Launches Creative Commons
It’s been a long time coming, but we’re excited to finally announce we have officially launched a new way for publishers to easily (and legally) republish our articles on their sites.
We believe an important...
What If the AI Revolution Is Neither Utopia nor Apocalypse, but Something in Between?
Why does everyone assume that the AI revolution will either lead to a fiery apocalypse or a glorious utopia, and not something in between? Of course, part of this is down to the fact that...
If Energy Becomes Free in the Future, How Will That Affect Our Lives?
Technology is making the cost of many things trend towards zero. Things we used to have to pay a lot for are now cheap or even free—think about how much it costs to buy...
How We Can ‘Robot-Proof’ Education to Better Adapt to Automation
Like millions of other individuals in the workforce, you’re probably wondering if you will one day be replaced by a machine. If you’re a student, you’re probably wondering if your chosen profession will even...
What Roboticists Are Learning From Early Generations of Lifelike Humanoid Robots
You might not have heard of Hanson Robotics, but if you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen their work. They were the company behind Sophia, the lifelike humanoid avatar that’s made dozens of high-profile media...
The Power to Upgrade Our Own Biology Is in Sight—But Is Society Ready for Human Enhancement?
Upgrading our biology may sound like science fiction, but attempts to improve humanity actually date back thousands of years. Every day, we enhance ourselves through seemingly mundane activities such as exercising, meditating, or consuming...
Why the Rise of Self-Driving Vehicles Will Actually Increase Car Ownership
It’s been a long time coming. For years Waymo (formerly known as Google Chauffeur) has been diligently developing, driving, testing and refining its fleets of various models of self-driving cars. Now Waymo is going...
The Clock’s Ticking on Climate Change, and It’s Time to Get Real About Tackling It
If you’re an insomniac, this situation will probably be familiar to you. It’s the night before a big exam or job interview. You go to bed with plenty of time to spare, but sleep...
You Thought Quantum Mechanics Was Weird: Check out Entangled Time
In the summer of 1935, the physicists Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger engaged in a rich, multifaceted and sometimes fretful correspondence about the implications of the new theory of quantum mechanics. The focus of...
Why Quantum Computers Will Be an Amazing Tool for Social Innovators
While most people think quantum computing is still a few years off, your next taxi ride in Bangkok may be attached to a quantum computer. Toyota Tsusho and Denso recently announced plans to use...
These Are the Most Exciting Industries and Jobs of the Future
We’ve all read the headlines: the robots are coming, and they will take our jobs. In fact, up to 45 percent of tasks workers perform can be automated using current technology, let alone future forecasts.
However,...
Want Faster Data and a Cleaner Planet? Start Mining Asteroids
Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real. This should not be surprising: compared with the breathtaking...
Low-Cost Soft Robot Muscles Can Lift 200 Times Their Weight and Self-Heal
Jerky mechanical robots are staples of science fiction, but to seamlessly integrate into everyday life they’ll need the precise yet powerful motor control of humans. Now scientists have created a new class of artificial...
If Work Dominated Your Every Moment Would Life Be Worth Living?
Imagine that work had taken over the world. It would be the centre around which the rest of life turned. Then all else would come to be subservient to work. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly,...
Why the World Is Still Getting Better—and That’s Likely to Continue
If you read or watch the news, you’ll likely think the world is falling to pieces. Trends like terrorism, climate change, and a growing population straining the planet’s finite resources can easily lead you...
This Unbelievable Research on Human Hibernation Could Get Us to Mars
Journeying to Mars is seldom out of the news these days. From Elon Musk releasing plans for his new rocket to allow SpaceX to colonize Mars, to NASA announcing another rover as part of...
When Will We Finally Achieve True Artificial Intelligence?
The field of artificial intelligence goes back a long way, but many consider it was officially born when a group of scientists at Dartmouth College got together for a summer, back in 1956. Computers...
Digitized to Democratized: These Are the 6 Ds of Exponential Technologies
“The Six Ds are a chain reaction of technological progression, a road map of rapid development that always leads to enormous upheaval and opportunity.”
–Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Bold
We live in incredible times....
Want Self-Healing Robots and Tires? Elastomers May Hold the Key
We all have scars, and each one tells a story. Tales of tomfoolery, tales of haphazardness, or in my case, tales of stupidity.
Whether the cause of your scar was a push-bike accident, a lack...
This Self-Driving AI Is Learning to Drive Almost Entirely in a Virtual World
I don’t have to open the doors of AImotive’s white 2015 Prius to see that it’s not your average car. This particular Prius has been christened El Capitan, the name written below the rear...
History Suggests the Hyperloop Is an Uncertain Promise for Future Cities
Proponents of Hyperloop have repeatedly suggested that their transportation technology will create new “mega-regions,” essentially reshaping the scope of cities. Multiple startups are now striving to defy critics and connect different dots on maps....
Neuroscience Could Bring Us Eternal Bliss, But Is That a Good Thing?
What if the secret to eternal happiness is a brain implant?
If you’re thinking that sounds like the premise of a Black Mirror episode, you’re not alone. Yet at the Society for Neuroscience annual conference...
Oxford Study Says Alien Life Would Evolve and Adapt Just Like Life on Earth
The alternative universe known as science fiction has given our culture a menagerie of alien species. From overstuffed teddy bears like Ewoks and Wookies to terrifying nightmares such as Alien and Predator, our collective...
Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Hand Restores 100 Realistic Touch Sensations
When Keven Walgamott reached out and grasped his wife’s hand, his face broke into an enormous smile.
For the first time in 14 years, he could feel her soft fingers, pressing firmly into his prosthetic...
5 Wild Biotech Products That Will Touch Our Lives in the Near Future
From cultured meat to a “MicrobeMiner” for antibiotics and liquid biocomputers, a new wave of consumer biotechnology products is transforming the world — and your shopping cart. From inside the world’s largest pre-seed life sciences accelerator,...
How Technology Is Leading Us Into the Imagination Age
In many ways, the future is unpredictable. A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even...
New Plasmonic Device to Help the Internet Keep Growing and Getting Faster
The volume of data shuttled around the internet is growing unchecked, placing ever greater burdens on our communication infrastructure. But a new device that takes advantage of the unusual properties of plasmons could tackle...
3 Dangerous Ideas From Ray Kurzweil
Recently, I interviewed my friend Ray Kurzweil at the Googleplex for a 90-minute webinar on disruptive and dangerous ideas, a prelude to my fireside chat with Ray at Abundance 360 this January.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaOfLtoaKqw]
Ray is my friend...
How Is Technology Evolving Over Time?
What was humanity’s first invention? Some say it was the wheel, while others say it was fire. But perhaps it was our invention of communication. Without this, no tool can be conceptualized, built, replicated,...
How Technology Is Driving Us Toward Peak Globalization
At some point in the future—and in some ways we are already seeing this—the amount of physical stuff moving around the world will peak and begin to decline. By “stuff,” I am referring to...
What It Would Take to Suck CO2 Back Out of the Atmosphere
If greenhouse gases are such a problem, can’t we just suck the carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere? It’s a perfectly reasonable question and an important area of technological research to pursue. The...
Why the World Is (Still) Better Than You Think—New Evidence For Abundance
Your mindset matters — now more than ever.
We are in the midst of a drug epidemic.
The drug? Negative news. The drug pushers? The media.
As I wrote in Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, we pay...
Does Our Survival Depend on Relentless Exponential Growth?
Malthus had a fever dream in the 1790s. While the world was marveling in the first manifestations of modern science and technology and the industrial revolution that was just beginning, he was concerned. He...
Could We Build a Blade Runner-Style ‘Replicant’?
The new Blade Runner sequel will return us to a world where sophisticated androids made with organic body parts can match the strength and emotions of their human creators. As someone who builds biologically...
How Artists Are Using Tech to Shape the Future
The capacity for creative expression is one of the defining qualities of being human. Our innovative imagination and ability to express it in so many different ways is unparalleled by any other living being.
However,...
The Coming Creativity Explosion Belongs to the Machines
Does creativity make human intelligence special?
It may appear so at first glance. Though machines can calculate, analyze, and even perceive, creativity may seem far out of reach. Perhaps this is because we find it...
Will Privacy Survive the Future?
Technological progress has radically transformed our concept of privacy. How we share information and display our identities has changed as we’ve migrated to the digital world.
As the Guardian states, “We now carry with us...
Japan’s SoftBank Is Investing Billions in the Technological Future
Remember the 1980s movie Brewster’s Millions, in which a minor league baseball pitcher (played by Richard Pryor) must spend $30 million in 30 days to inherit $300 million? Pryor goes on an epic spending...
Civilization Is Breaking Down—Here’s What We Need to Do About It
“I think civilization is fundamentally breaking down today.” These were the opening words of Salim Ismail’s talk at Singularity University’s Global Summit in San Francisco this week.
Not the most uplifting intro. But the...
